preventing resin hulls from warping after bending/old age..

[JIM BAUMANN]

This came up over on the other side....

I have seen many fine waterline shipmodels ruined though the contraction and subsequent warping of resin hulls in varying temperatures, often bending the thin mounting material with it in the case of wood/plastic bases or even aluminium and perspex sandwich laminate as I used to favour(and still do for tiny ships!)

This is what I do now:

I mount all my model boats,( especially the long hulled resin ships which are prone to distortion through temperature variations at the best of times!) at the earliest possible occasion onto a 3mm thick stainless steel plate, pre-drilled with countersunk holes along its length and screwed with no 6 selftapping stainless steel screws from underneath

---- ergo no warpage,.... EVER!

...it also prevents paint wear and reduces risk/damage by handling whilst building. The only possible downsides are:

If you have a wall case with glass shelves as I do the shelves need to be toughened glass 5mm thick, otherwise eventually the cumulative weight of heavy stainless steel plates will go south..... with the destruction of all who sail under her... big bad!

The other thing is that whilst in build; when tilting the ship or holding at an inclined angle the left wrist does tend to get tired as a plate the size I used for 1/700 HMS FURIOUS 1917 and my current build of HMS FURIOUS 1941 weighs nearly a kilo....

but they will NEVER EVER warp...

JIM BAUMANN

[Ron Smith]

...

[Anonymous]

Wish you would put, "This is for 1/700 waterline models - ONLY!"

Other scales do not have this problem.

Thank You,
Dave Becker

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hi Dave... you say that but...

.....yeah you are right!That said, full hull models appear to be less prone to this problem-greater depth etc.
My waterline WEM 1/350 HMS HOOD did afer 3 years or so bow the MDF base of her glass case up at each end by nearly 1/2" at each end--all the riggging went really slack....I 'tuned' a piece of reverse curved stainless plate onto the underside and slowly in a very very hot room tightenend a large number of screws into the base.---on a fully rigged model it was less than fun....She now is deadstraight again!

JIM BAUMANN

[Timmy C]

Do injection plastic kits warp?

[JIM BAUMANN]

Timmy,

WATERLINE Plastic kits of any scale can warp; the most prone being 'tall' 1/700 carriers or long narrow ships like Liners, these can definitely warp fore and aft; prime example was my 1/700 Akagi wher after a while thee whale shaped deck straightened and the waterline hogged...

Again the cure was SLOWLY screwing her down from underneath onto a stable base in a VERY VERY HOT room so as to allow the plastic to soften and move.

Tricky with a waterlined sailing ship.... !!

JIM BAUMANN

[Cadman]

Jim are you cutting the metal base to the outline of the ship at the waterline?

[mike mccabe]

Jim,
Steel plates??? Are you going for scale weight as well now?

Mike

[JIM BAUMANN]

>>>>>Jim are you cutting the metal base to the outline of the ship at the waterline? <<<<<<<<<<

Not quite !, that would really be like hard work!!

I use a steel plate as the 'diorama' base for my 1/700 ships, onto which I subsequently apply tyhe seascape as appropriate; as they are all displayed in a wallcase which has wooden framed toughened glass shelves the baseplates are all 85mm wide so as to 'sit' within the mahoganey framing that sits 3mm up from the glassurface, in various lengths pending ship type. That way the bases do not protrude above thee timber eding.
I 'll send a couple of pics if you might be able to insert them here on the forum to illustrate what mean!
JIM BAUMANN

[silent-one]

Hi Jim
when your putting it onto the base in the building phase. how do you then get the watercoulour paper under it to make the sea. Which presumably is done in the final build phase? Im confused with the build order

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hello silent one!--- broken the silence ...eh!

You made a very good and valid point.
I should have explained it a bit better...

Because I fasten the boat down to the stainless steel plate using screws into pre-drilled holes in the hull--from underneath
through numerous holes in the plate that have been countersunk, the model is removable at pretty much any stage of the build, including removal when I make the water.




This thread of mine which illustrated the water making should assist with the pics:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37223

Perhaps the most salient point is...

The plate can be mild steel, or thick aluminium--whatever you van have made locally--it is surprisingly cheap to have a sheet metal fabricator cut, drill and countersink plates for small modelships!!

I work within the Yachting Industry--so stainless steel is easily accessible--and is clean to work with!
My metal man charges me £ 8.00 - 20.00 per plate--which I consider good value when it will conserve the model indefinitly
within a glass case.

Drop me a line If I can help further

Cheers

Jim Baumann